


Let the Numbness Fade Away

by Curtashiism



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Character Study, Depression, Drug Addiction, Gen, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29651967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curtashiism/pseuds/Curtashiism
Summary: Jolene learned early on that numbing was the best way to deal with pain.
Relationships: Jolene & Beth Harmon
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5
Collections: Black Is Beautiful 2021





	Let the Numbness Fade Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



> Happy reading, SegaBarrett! I hope you enjoy.

She was five years old, and her parents were _dead_.

 _Dead_ was almost incomprehensible to Jolene. _Dead_ was what happened to her goldfish the month after she brought it home from the pet store. _Dead_ was when something you loved went away forever, and no amount of crying would bring them back. _Death_ was the Ultimate Bad Thing that could happen.

Death meant pits of sadness. Death meant watching some mockery of your loved ones taken away forever. Her goldfish, down the toilet; her parents, in the ground. Jolene's face covered in tears for the fish, wiped away by her Mama; Jolene's face covered in tears for her parents, wiped away by her own hand.

Death meant the loss of everything she knew and cared about. Her home, her church, her routine. Death meant sadness could attack her any moment, like a monster in the night, ready to pounce even when she was sure she was okay.

Because death meant you never were _okay_. You could be okay, but not _okay_. It was like a wound that would never heal. Sometimes it wouldn't be bothersome. Otherwise it would be sheer agony. And that became her world.

She was five years old, and she was bleeding on the inside, and no one _cared._

* * *

She was seven years old, and wouldn't you know it? The wound had gone numb.

It was still there; she could feel the blood dripping. Sometimes pain pulsed in tandem with waves of numbness.

She just felt calm. Nothing mattered. Her wound wasn't healing, but it wasn't getting bigger, either. It was stable, and she could almost pretend it was gone, thanks to that magic medicine they gave her.

It didn't take Jolene long to figure out it worked better at night. That way she could stay awake- albeit somewhat lethargic- in the day. At night, it prevented those bouts of sobbing that got the other girls so angry at her.

Numb was good. When she got good and numb like this, she could think about anything and be okay. She could even replay the moment she learned her parents had died, and she didn't feel a thing.

No wonder no one else had cared. The best way to handle pain, clearly, was to numb it. That was why all the orphans were given those pills every day.

* * *

She was nine years old, and she had just learned something strange: the younger girls were looking up to her, suddenly, like she was some kind of role model or mentor. They asked her questions, they watched her, they came to her when they needed help with homework or a hug.

Jolene obliged, somewhat bewildered. Why weren't they numb? Why weren't they ignoring their wants like she did? Didn't they know?

Maybe they just had to learn like she had.

She tried pushing them away at first, the way the adults always had. But it made a feeling well up in her that she didn't like, a deep sadness and guilt. It was hard to watch the little ones' faces when they looked so lost and lonely and _needy_.

So she stopped wondering why they weren't numb too, stopped wondering why they weren't putting on a mask made of their own smile every day. In fact, she found that it was kind of nice. Taking care of others let her forget her own pain. If she couldn't be truly happy, at least she could help someone else to be. And it was nice to have friends.

* * *

She was eleven years old, and somehow she felt impossibly ancient. Looking at the orphans who were the same age she had been when she showed up filled her with a strange sense of responsibility.

Someone had to take care of these orphans, after all, and clearly the people being paid to do it weren't going to.

She became a protective figure to all the girls. "I'm not your guardian angel," she'd tell them with a long-suffering sigh, and yet that was exactly how they saw her. She wasn't an orphan like them. She was their hero, even if she didn't want to be.

But when she did want to, she secretly enjoyed it. It was another way to numb herself, after all. When the medicine failed, she could push aside her own problems by helping someone else.

This Harmon kid seemed like just the kind of orphan who would need rescuing. She'd been there with her mom when she died, she barely spoke and she walked around Methuen like a deer in the headlights.

* * *

She was thirteen years old, and she was lost. She always had words of encouragement for the orphans she lived with, but what were words in the face of withdrawal? Even sneaking pills wasn't an option anymore, after what Beth had pulled. Jolene couldn't blame the kid. She was hurting and didn't know better. But now no one else would have that option.

Jolene wished she could ask Miss Deardorff if having them compliant for all those years was worth it now. And yet... oh, she knew she didn't want to ask.

She was numb. She was hurting. She was angry and she didn't care and she wished Beth had saved her a pill from that giant jar.

* * *

She was fifteen years old, and suddenly she was being asked questions about her future. Sixteen was an important birthday, they told her. Soon it would be time to start planning. Did she want to go to college? Did she want to find a nice man and settle down?

Hell, Jolene didn't even know what she wanted to do during their Saturday Free Hour, let alone for the rest of her _life_.

She wished she had the world of possibilities open to her like Beth. Beth was brilliant, not just at chess but at math and science too. She could do anything and everything. She could probably go to the moon if she put her mind to it.

Jolene was just too numb. Lately the numbness had changed to an empty feeling, instead of the shield it had been for the last decade. Empty and tired, but not fixed by any amount of sleep, like refilling a glass of water with the bottom taken out of it.

She wondered if that was what chess was for Beth, a way of numbing without actually taking her emotions away.

* * *

She was seventeen years old, and for the first time in her life, she knew what true jealousy felt like.

Not the kind where you wanted someone else's toy, or where the project they'd barely tried on got praised while your hard work was ignored.

This was deep. Burning.

It felt like rage, it felt like hatred. It felt like fire and acid and it burned through her outer shell, eating at that wound that had never closed and leaving it as raw as ever.

She'd thought Harmon was going to be a lifer like her. Beth would be at her side for her graduation ceremony, and then Jolene would come visit every so often. Maybe they'd even move out when Beth turned eighteen.

But no. Harmon just had to go and get adopted.

Of course the rational part of Jolene knew that hadn't been her choice. But inside she wanted to scream with the injustice of it all.

She did her best to be _good._ She took care of all the other girls, helped them when they were hurting. But Beth was abandoning her.

Once again, she was bleeding on the inside and no one cared, not even her supposed best friend.

Fine, she thought. If Beth was going to play that way, Jolene could hurt _her_ too.

She knew that Chess Openings whatever it was book meant a lot to Beth. It had been a gift, it had helped her exponentially grow better at chess, and it was just a comfort for her to read.

All the more reason to take it, Jolene thought. Maybe it was time someone gave _her_ something for once.

Still, that twinge of guilt ate at her as she sat at the window to watch Beth and her new family drive away.

"Good luck, cracker," she sighed under her breath, stroking one thumb over the fancy lettering on the book's cover.

* * *

She was eighteen, and she was probably making the worst mistake of her life.

Surely she'd fail. She wouldn't last a single semester here before she flunked out. And then what?

_And then what?_

But it was too late to turn back now. She could do nothing but her best. And that was the scariest part, really, knowing that this was a situation where her best very well could not be enough.

But Jolene was a fighter, and she was as smart as she was brave. The fear pushed her to try all the harder, to prove she belonged here.

She thrived on it. She excelled where others caved to pressure. Before she knew it, the history of injustice she learned about lit a fire in her- a fire that burned away that numb feeling. For better and worse, the depth of her emotions returned to her, fits of rage she could barely control, bouts of grief that left her nearly bedridden, crashing waves of joy and desire and curiosity.

There was a wide world around her, and suddenly she was a part of it, no long sequestered in that damn orphanage without a hope of being adopted. She was a part of the world now, could make decisions and learn and _act_.

She could fight injustice. She could bring change.

* * *

She was twenty-three, and suddenly the world didn't seem like such a bad place.

She was on her way to being a lawyer. Her paralegal work was rewarding and paid well, and she would have the money together in no time.

And Harmon was all over the news. Her old friend had risen to the very top, just as Jolene had known she would all along. She couldn't help but smile guiltily every time she thought of that little souvenir she'd taken from Beth. She still opened the book up and read it sometimes, despite the meaning being as far beyond her as nuclear physics. It made her feel close to Beth.

But then the janitor from Methuen died, and _hell_ , this was going to hurt Beth. Jolene knew the instant she heard that she'd have to be the one to break the news to Beth personally.

And seeing her again after all these years was an added bonus, too.

The poor kid was a wreck. She never moved on from the pills, only managed to replace them with other things. Even her ultimate challenge in chess was beyond her.

Seeing Beth in that state brought back that feeling she'd had at Methuen. Helping others dulled her pain.

"I'm not here to be your guardian angel," she told Beth, and meant it. She didn't want that role anymore, didn't want the responsibility of being a mentor. But a friend, doing another friend a favor- she could do that. She _wanted_ to do that.

She was helping Beth, just like old times. Beth had her Chess Openings book back, just like old times. But they were older, Jolene more sure of herself, and Beth somehow simultaneously more and less so.

Jolene smiled, in spite of Beth's situation. It felt right, even in its wrongness. It was just another challenge for two orphans to overcome- Beth and Jolene against the world once again.

* * *

She was twenty-four, and she felt calm. Calm, and not numb.

She felt sure of her place in the world. She had Beth in her life again, who was starting to show her how to play chess. She had a boyfriend she loved very much. She had a promising future as a lawyer.

Life wasn't perfect. She had bad days, and the world was still an unfair place, and Beth was still struggling with her drinking, jumping on and off the wagon.

But the world didn't need to be perfect. It was better than she ever could have imagined as a child. She was free and she could go through life without being numb.

Jolene was twenty-four, and she was finally happy with her life.


End file.
